No movie tonight once again, but I did begin watching a miniseries called "Manhunt : Unabomber" that was on Discovery Channel last year. I heard of it because Stephen King recommended it on Facebook. Thanks, Steve! So I ordered it from the Libe, waited a couple weeks for it to arrive, and tonight I watched the first two episodes (out of eight). The story of the Unabomber and the FBI's all-out effort to identify and apprehend him is fascinating stuff and makes for riveting viewing. I remember when it was happening in real time, back in 1995. The Oklahoma City bombing had already happened in April of that year, and then in the Fall we heard about this person called The Unabomber. He sent an extensive written statement to the New York Times about his enmity toward the technological age we have lived in since the Industrial Revolution. The Times labeled this 56 page writing as "The Unabomber Manifesto".
He sent bombs through the mail, in packages, to blow people up. He was a very bad guy.
And yet, it must be said that his writing, the document he mailed to the Times, detailed a philosophy about the age we are living in, of dependency on technology, that many people might find themselves in agreement with. Indeed, in his provided examples, of cars stuck in traffic, and of what was in 1995 the oncoming ultra-dependency on cell phones, it must be said - abhorrent as his crimes were - that he was right on the money about our society, and the road we are headed down.
This message is given center stage in the miniseries. Excellent "good guy" actor Sam Worthington (who always plays Good Guys), stars as the FBI profiler tasked with the impossible job of coming up with a psychological workup of the Unabomber, who has been at large for 17 years. He sees the FBI's past efforts at identifying the perpetrator as misguided and futile. In his view, whatever they have been doing for seventeen years has not been working, because they have never come up with a single suspect.
I was locked in as I watched the first two episodes of this show, and I fully identified with Sam Worthington's character. You can guess why. He (like me) was trying to solve the Unsolvable.
I remember when the Unabomber was in the news. It was a huge story. And then, all of a sudden he sent this lengthy "Manifesto" (the New York Times name for it) to the paper, and they printed it.
I was living at Burton Street at the time, and it must be said that - in the name of honesty - while we did not read the entire 56 pages of the manifesto, what we did read, we all agreed with, meaning myself and the other guys in the house : Mr. D, The Prime Minister, et al. What the Unabomber wrote, about the long term effects of technological overkill on society were not only correct then, but have proven to be true, ongoing ever since, for twenty years. We are seeing it with our own eyes, and it was right in our faces to begin with.
Ted Kaczynski is a guy who killed and maimed people in horrible ways, and terrorised a nation. He is deservedly in prison for life and was lucky not to be executed.
But his writing made a lot of sense. He had been a Harvard professor, and had an IQ of 168.
This is why it was such a tough case to crack, and why the FBI had failed in it's previous efforts to identify the bomber, because for 17 years they had been looking for a person they could never have conceived of.
How many college professors are psychos?
Okay........let me rephrase that : How many genius math professors (as opposed to stupid-ass film professors named Rappaport), are psycho killers, and have taught at Harvard as well?
This is why it was so difficult for the FBI to come up with a profile on Kaczynski, because he was a genius, and he was coming so far out of left field that they never would have even considered his psychological "type" as a suspect.
Which is what makes the show so fascinating, because the main focus in on Sam Worthington's character. He is presented as a guy with a high-school education, who became a Philadelphia street cop, and who, through smarts and determination went on to the FBI, and finally wound up as their top profiler.
And it is he who finally latches on to what the Unabomber is communicating in his manifesto, because he is able to identify with his message.
In other words, the FBI profiler feels the same way, deep inside, about technological society, as does Kaczynski the Unabomber, and because of this, and because of his other intuitive skills, he is able to get inside Kaczynski's head, even though he has never met him and has no idea who he is.
This is Profiling, and it is a form of the genius of the Sixth Sense, of high level intuition, and absolute trust in that intuition, even when everyone around you, including your superiors, are discounting your conclusions.
The Unabomber was caught, after seventeen years of fooling the FBI, because of one agent who was able to attach himself psychologically to Ted Kaczynski's mindset.
Man, do I admire that.
That is me in a nutshell, because I need to think outside the box, and I have already thought so far out of the box about my own case - 1989 - that I have tried to reel myself in, and say, "wait a minute....it couldn't be as weird as you think".
But then I remember that I only retract my knowledge, my certainty, because I have never had anyone to corroborate it, even though I know there are people who could do so if they chose to.
Most people, as the Unabomber story shows, choose not to go to extended lengths, via their thought processes, to try and understand a case that seems to be beyond comprehension.
Most people back off, because they do not feel such a case can be solved.
But once in a while, there is a detective who knows he has the high level of intuition necessary to solve an "unsolvable" case.
Man, does that ever inspire me. It's a lonely road to trod, when nobody cares about something important that must be solved. So when you see a person as determined as this FBI agent to catch the Unabomber, it is inspiring.
A big Thumbs Up for "Manhunt : Unabomber".
See you in church in the morn. Pats will win the Super Bowl, Eagles are toast.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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